Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held another round of meetings Wednesday with residents of the Tavush Province who live in the Berkaber, Voskepar and Kirants villages, amid ongoing concern that Pashinyan has decided to relinquish their villages to Azerbaijan as part of the peace negotiations.
The meetings, which were held behind closed doors, followed Pashinyan’s effort last month to dispel local residents’ concern over his continued insistence that the handover of the villages to Azerbaijan would great advance his policy of peace in the region.
The villages in question, according to Pashinyan, are Baghanis-Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Ghizilhajili, which the prime minster contends are not part of sovereign Armenia as outlined by the 1991 Alma Ata declaration signed after the fall of the Soviet Union and based on which Armenian authorities insist the border delimitation process should be based.
Following similar meetings last month, the local residents said they were on edge, because Pashinyan failed to outline security guarantees in the event the four villages in question are handed over to Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan declined to comment about the meeting, saying that “I’ve already spoken so much [on the matter], I’ve said whatever is possible to say.”
A resident of Voskepar who participated in the meeting told Azatutyun.am’s Armenian Service that the prime minister gave them his assurances that “the authorities are doing everything to have results in favor of Armenia” during negotiations with Azerbaijan.
Later Pashinyan posted on his official Facebook account a video from one of his meetings in Tavush, in which, in the context of apparent tough decisions to be made during the border demarcation process locally, he says that “a moment comes when you have to sacrifice yourself for the sake of your Motherland, for the sake of your country.”
“You have to sacrifice your respect, sacrifice your name, sacrifice the mental state of your child, sacrifice the peace of your family, sacrifice the good memory of your parents, sacrifice the good memory of your grandfather… But you should know what you are doing it for. I know what I’m doing it for. I am doing it for this Republic of Armenia to be an independent state,” the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, Pashinyan’s spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasarian issued a statement later on Wednesday, commenting on “various statements” attributed to the prime minister by “some sources” after his meetings in the border villages.
“Any statement that was not made or confirmed by the prime minister or an official or a state body authorized to represent him is officially denied,” Baghdasarian said without elaborating.
Azatutyun.am learned from the government that Pashinyan’s meeting with residents in Voskepar lasted for about an hour.
“In Voskepar, the prime minister presented to the local residents the current situation in the peace process with Azerbaijan, including the border delimitation and demarcation process. Next, the prime minister answered the questions of Voskepar residents,” a government official said.
On his trips today Pashinyan was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, who conducts negotiations with the Azerbaijani side over border delimitation and demarcation issues, as well as by Minister of Territorial Administration Gnel Sanosyan and Police Chief Vahe Ghazaryan.
The post Pashinyan Again Meets with Tavush Residents to Discuss Ceding Villages to Azerbaijan first appeared on The South Caucasus News.